


all the things we carried

by advantagetexas



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 19:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11065566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advantagetexas/pseuds/advantagetexas
Summary: "I loved him against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.— Charles Dickens, Great Expectations"Joshua Faraday was…eccentric. A gambler, a thief, a cardshark. He was also one of the 7 heroes of Rose Creek.





	all the things we carried

**Author's Note:**

> title is from "may i have this dance?" by francis and the lights, actual story is from my unerring need for this movie to have a happy ending

I loved him against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.  
— Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

 

Joshua Faraday was…eccentric. A gambler, a thief, a cardshark. He was also one of the 7 heroes of Rose Creek. He, for no other reason than for the greater good of these people he had never met, had agreed to their assumed suicide mission. It was something that Vasquez had never understood, his devotion to their mission, his unerring confidence. 

And then there was the Gatling gun incident. Faraday had very nearly died, and yet here he was, grinning from across the table as if nothing had happened. 

“Hey, Vasquez, the doc here asked you a question.” Faraday’s voice snapped Vasquez out of his thoughts, and back into the real world. The town’s doctor was standing beside him, looking quite annoyed. 

“Lo siento, I was not paying attention, could you repeat that?” The doctor sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“I just wanted to know how well your arm was holding up. No signs of impaired function, right?”

“No, nothing like that,” Vasquez responds succinctly. The doctor nods, then tips his hat and leaves the bar with no further fanfare.

“No need to give the good doctor the cold shoulder just because you’re losing your wages,” Faraday jokes, throwing his hand of cards to the table. Two aces, beating the 6 and 7 in Vasquez’s hand by a country mile. He looks over, the smile on his face akin to the summer sun, and for a second Vasquez loses his tongue. 

“You win this time, pendejo, next time you will not be so lucky,” he manages to stutter, as Faraday gathers the winnings from the table. 

“What’s that mean?” he asks, as he carefully folds the dollars and tucks them into his vest. 

“It means ‘friend’,” Vasquez replies in a sincere tone, lying through his teeth. To his surprise, Faraday actually seems to stop, gets a thoughtful look on his face that seems foreign among the laugh lines on his tanned face. 

“Really? You think we’re friends?” Faraday asks, his joking tone gone, leaning on the table. 

“I…” Vasquez pauses, not knowing quite what to say. He and Faraday had always had a strange relationship. Something like a vitriolic camaraderie, not quite enemies, but not friends, either. They tolerated each other. But, as time had gone on, Vasquez had started to see past the façade that Faraday tried to put up. For all his jokes and chaos he really was a kind man at heart. He acted above it all because he felt like he was lower than dirt. His brave sacrifice for the town had been little more than a way to redeem himself in death. Funny how life had not allowed him even that. 

“Anyone willing to give their life for mine is a friend of mine,” he finally replies, thinking it to be the answer closest to the truth. The truth of the matter was, Vasquez had developed these…inconvenient feelings. He did not miss the moments when his heart would nearly jump out of his chest when Faraday was around. He tried not to think about the weeks he spent lost and listless as Faraday recovered, the pain he’d felt, the tears he’d cried when they’d thought he had died. 

Joshua Faraday was not the settling type, though. Especially not with someone like him. He told the story about being married to his guns so often that Vasquez was starting to believe that it was true. Well, not in a literal way, but in the sense that Faraday’s true love was adventure, the call of the wild. 

“Oh, right,” Faraday responded, finally, a strange look crossing his face, halfway between disappointment and sadness before he put on the happy mask again. 

“Faraday, como diablos dices,” Vasquez cursed to himself as he tried to remember the metaphor in English, “What bee is in your bonnet?” 

“I don’t get your meaning,” Faraday replies, nonchalant, as if nothing was wrong. 

“Joshua, do not lie to me,” Vasquez pries, internally cringing at the surprise on Faraday’s face upon hearing his first name. 

“I just thought...you know what, it’s nothing,” Faraday says, suddenly getting up from the table and limping as quickly as possible towards the door of the bar. The remnants of his sacrifice had not been as easily ignored as Vasquez’s were. Vasquez stood up from the table, following him out the door and down the street. 

“Faraday. Faraday!” he shouted, trying to get the other man to stop, finally putting a hand on his shoulder, only to be thrown off as Faraday spun angrily. 

“Get your dirty paws off of me,” he hissed. 

“Why are you like this?” Vasquez asked, the concern clear as day in his voice, which seemed to only make Faraday more angry. 

“Why am I angry?” he asked incredulously, as if the answer was pure fact. “I’m angry because everyone in this town only sees me as their goddamn savior. I thought you, of all people, wouldn’t, but I guess not.” Faraday went to stalk off again, but stopped in his tracks when he heard Vasquez’s voice. 

“We are both liars, guero,” he said, and Faraday turned. “You say you like living with the mask, but you don’t. It becomes, Dios, me gustaría que el inglés fuera más fácil, it becomes a set of chains.” 

“You don’t know me,” Faraday growled in response. 

“I’d like to. Not this Faraday that the people of Rose Creek know, but the one that I met while travelling with Chisolm.” 

“Yeah, well, you met him. Like what you saw?” Vasquez sighs at this, takes a step closer, and puts a hand on Faraday’s chin, tilting it just right. 

“I am about to do something very stupid,” he said, before closing the gap between them, kissing Faraday like it was the last thing in his life. Like he was taking the sun and shooting it into his veins. He pulled away, the taste of cheap cigars still on his lips. 

“Why…why did you do that?” Faraday said, voice lost in a void of confusion. 

“Because I am in love with you, idiota de mierda. I have been since before we arrived.”

“You…you don’t really want this,” Faraday said, his voice small for the first time since Vasquez had met him. “You don’t want me.” 

“I do. I just haven’t figured out how to tell you until now,” Vasquez replied, “You’re a good man, Faraday, it was inevitable that I was going to fall in love with you.” 

“I’m not good for you,” Faraday responded, a humorless laugh in his voice. “I’m not good for anyone.”

“I don’t care. I want to be with you anyway,” Vasquez insists, trying to get Faraday to see how serious he is. 

Suddenly, from across the street, where neither of them had noticed him approach, Goodnight yells “Goddamnit, Faraday! Just kiss the boy already and get it over with! Stop pussyfooting around!” 

In a sudden burst of confidence, Faraday pulls Vasquez in again, kissing him deep and slow, and wonderful. Robicheaux makes a fake gagging noise from across the street, and Faraday and Vasquez both free a hand and flip him off in sync, still not breaking apart from one another. When they finally do, Robicheaux is gone, and they are left alone again. 

“Are you sure about this?” Faraday asked, still out of breath, his face glowing for the first time in a long time. 

“More sure than ever,” Vasquez responds, “More sure than I’ve ever been in my life.” 


End file.
